Ministry Of Health Prepares Scouts To Become Back-Up Health Workers

Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin/DOC PR MINISTRY OF HEALTH

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Health is preparing members of the Indonesian Scout movement organization (Pramuka) as backup health workers in the face of future outbreaks.

"What we need to prepare is the infrastructure to deal with disasters. Especially what I prepare for the people. We now lack vaccinators, tracers. I am preparing backup health workers," said Budi Gunadi Sadikin when speaking at the Ganesha Policy Podcast Ep.1: "BGS, When will COVID-19 end?" as reported by Antara, Wednesday, December 2nd.

Budi said backup health workers will play a role when Indonesia is fighting against virus outbreaks and natural disasters.

The Minister of Health said the Indonesian Scout organization was one of the potential community associations to carry out duties as health workers. "(Membership) Scouts have 5 million people. As for the organizers and enforcers, there are 1 million people," he said.

Budi said the health security system is one of the reform programs that the government is pursuing, including preparation for disaster.

According to the Minister of Health, the role of health workers needs to be prepared in the event of a disaster that kills civilians, including epidemics, physical wars to natural disasters.

"The victims of the COVID-19 disaster are hundreds of thousands, the Aceh tsunami natural disaster is bigger. In Indonesia, the most victims are natural disasters," he said.

According to Budi, the Ministry of Health will increase the competence of Scout members in helping health workers deal with the outbreak.

"I like to collect signs of special skills, for example, can inject, can test. So every time I have a backup," he said.